decisions, decisions...

Not to brag or anything, but I have been offered another job.

When it rains it pours, as the saying goes.

It's nice to know that all that hard work writing applications etc has paid off, and I have been offered two equally good jobs in each of the areas I was targeting. One, kind of related in content to my research area; and the other, education focused, drawing more on my teaching experience.

So take heart career changers - this will happen to you one day too.

Luckily, many years of seeing friends go through retrenchment, unemployment and job searching had prepared me for the scenario in which I would be offered more than one job. For some reason, it seems that almost everyone I know who has made a serious effort to find a new job, has ended up agonising over a choice of between 2-4 offers at the same time. (4 is kind of extreme, I admit, but the person in question gives GREAT interviews. Seriously, they could run classes they're so good).

Anyway, so be prepared to make a tough call. And it is only you that can make that decision. For some, it might be job security, for others it might be career prestige. Alternatively, it might be a choice between companies, or a chocie about benefits. Location and accessibility are also high up on the list too. Do you want to be able to get home quickly or do you not mind commuting?

But the best part is - it really doesn't matter. For all the people I have seen agonise about the decision, I know that once they've made the decision they've never looked back. Ultimately though, the best part about not being an academic, is that you can change your mind again further down the track. Sure, you have to write a heap more applications and go through the whole job search process again, but hey, once you've been offered one or more jobs, you know you will get another one too.

That much definitely is not true of the academic track, that's for sure.

So which choice will I make? I don't know yet, I am still deciding. But really, who cares in the end? I am not making a committment to move to some awful town in the middle of nowhere to work with colleagues I might end up hating in a desperate bid to secure tenure in 5-7 years that might never happen in any case. I am simply making a decision about which job I think will be best for me given my circumstances right now. I am not obliged to accept either job, and at any point I can move on to something else without my colleagues feeling like I've stabbed them in the back, regardless of which job I end up with.

How refreshing.